The made for TV film SOS Titanic* was made in 1979, more than twenty years after A Night to Remember.
This long period of time in which no new film about the 'ocean's greatest disaster' is a clear indication of just how influential A Night to Remember was. It seems that there was very much a "been there, done that" feeling around, that the story of the sinking of the Titanic had been told and needed no further elaboration.
There are of course great differences between the two films; while A Night to Remember focuses to a considerable extent on Charles Herbert Lightoller - with several other stories interwoven in the tale - SOS Titanic concentrates very much on three couples of passengers, John Jacob and Madeleine Astor from 1st class, Lawrence Beesley and Leigh Goodwin, an American lady he befriends, in Second Class and a number of steerage passengers.
As the film recounts the story of the Titanic disaster, the officers of the ship are of course present, but they are very much reduced to an amorphous mass in the background.
The first officer shown in SOS Titanic could be very easily be mistaken for a reasonably faithful rendition of the first officer. His role is very much in accordance with earlier (and later) renditions of his part, he can be seen doing all the things we expect Murdoch to do: he can be seen in the company of the other officers trailing in the wake of the Captain, he takes over the watch from Lightoller at 10 pm on Sunday night, he unsuccessfully attempts to avoid the iceberg and later on loads and lowers life-boats and alongside Chief Officer Wilde watches as Bruce Ismay gets away into a life-boat.
However, unlike the real first Officer of the Titanic, the officer in this film has a moustache. (Admittedly, Murdoch had had a moustache earlier in his life but it had gone for several years before he sailed on the Titanic.)
This may be regarded as a minor mistake. After all, the appearances of the characters do not bear any striking resemblance to the historical people, the fashion in the film owe much more to the 1970s than to the 1910s. Madelaine Astor looks like a lost hippie while J. J. Astor appears like a latter day version of Abraham Lincoln.
The first officer in the film is however called Joseph Murdoch, while the first name of first officer of the real ship was William.
A simple mistake – or does this film reveal that there was a hitherto unknown twin brother?
Perhaps there is an even more exciting explanation: As we have learnt in Star Trek (original series, episode 'Mirror, Mirror') and more recently South Park there is a parallel universe, close to ours, and it is possible for the inhabitants of one universe to enter the other. The only way to distinguish between their universe and ours is that these people often sport facial hair while their counterparts from this one does not.
And in SOS Titanic it is not only Mr Murdoch who has a moustache, Col. Astor has an entire beard he never had in real life, and Joseph Boxhall, fourth officer seems to have grown a moustache too.
Is SOS Titanic in fact a film set in a parallel universe?
Unfortunately, amusing as this theory is, the real reason behind this mystery is presumably that somebody responsible for the script just simply made a mistake. Perhaps he confused the first names of Boxhall and Murdoch.
Perhaps it was even only the person responsible for the credits who mixed names up.
That not much of importance is given to his character can easily be seen as his name appears as the last one in the list of "those who perished", well after Captain E.J. Smith and lift attendant Alfie King.
- And Fred Barrett. Who after all survived. (??)
One interesting factoid about SOS Titanic is that David Warner, who plays Lawrence Beesley, has since travelled on the Titanic a second time: in Cameron's Titanic he portrays Cal Hockley's sinister manservant Spicer Lovejoy. So, while the real Lawrence Beesley did not manage to go down with the ship the second time round (during the filming of A Night to Remember), David Warner did the second time he played a character travelling on the Titanic.
[Note: The Internet Movie Database Murdoch current lists the character as William Murdoch, which actually may be my fault as I pointed out to them that First Officer Murdoch's real first name was William. Unfortunately I apparently made it not clear that this comment did not refer to any mistake in their listing but to the credits in the film where he is credited as Joseph Murdoch.]
*There are two different versions of SOS Titanic, I have only seen one.
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